Pirate's Nest (Rim Jumper Book 3), page 1
Pirate’s Nest
THE THIRD RIM JUMPER ADVENTURE
Copyright © 2021 Tim Rangnow
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-952412-15-8
Published By: Vagabond Publishing
Printed in the United States of America
Pirate’s Nest
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Other Books
About The Author
Chapter One
Kole gently guided the woman and her small child up the ramp and into Rim Jumper’s cargo bay. The little boy was sniffling and hugging one arm tightly around his mother’s knee as he looked up at the ship with fearful eyes. The woman had a determined look on her face, but there was uncertainty deep in her eyes.
Neela appeared at the top of the ramp, smiling widely at the woman and boy. Kole felt his heart stutter, always amazed at how much she’d changed since he first met her on Hebat Prime. She’d been wearing pink overalls that matched her long pink dreadlocks, and her hyperactive vitality had led him to believe she was younger than she truly was. Now, wearing black pants with a white shirt tucked into them, with her dark curls pulled back in a ponytail, she looked much more mature. And much more beautiful.
“Hi there, cutie. What’s your name?” Neela crouched down to get on the child’s level as he reached the top of the ramp. He ducked behind his mother’s leg, peeking out at the stranger with one eye.
“Mason, be nice. These people are helping us.” The woman looked over her shoulder to Kole, her mouth turning up in a quick but hesitant smile.
“That’s a cool name,” Neela said, still trying to engage the boy. “I’m Neela. Hey, do you want to know a secret?” She leaned in, lowering her voice to a near whisper. “We have chocolate in the galley. Do you want to help me find it?” The boy inched out from behind his mother, glancing up to get a nod from her before he put his small hand in Neela’s and allowed her to lead him deeper into the ship. His steps got faster as they neared the corridor that led to the cockpit, with the galley just to the left after leaving the large cargo bay.
Kole pressed the button to close the ramp, cutting off the damp, hot air from this planet deep in the Rim of the galaxy. A light touch on his arm made him stiffen, but he forced himself to relax as he turned to face the woman.
“Thank you for helping us, Captain Anwynn.”
“You should thank my partner,” he said, inclining his head toward the galley. “She’s the one who dug into your files and discovered the story behind the bounty.”
It was supposed to have been an easy job. A quick jaunt of twelve light years from the planet where they dropped off their last bounty, to grab a woman wanted by the authorities in the Outer Rim. The bounty sheet listed her crimes as kidnapping, assault with intent to kill, and larceny. They didn’t care if she was brought back alive or dead, as long as the four-year-old child with her was unharmed.
On the flight out, Neela kept digging. She said something about the bounty made her feel “icky, like”. After several hours of plowing through various databases that were spread across the galaxy, racking up a couple hundred credits worth of usage fees in the process, she breezed into the cockpit with a grin of triumph.
“I told you that bounty was sketchy, man. See this?” She held her datapad in front of his eyes, and he grabbed it to read what was on the screen. “The lady ran away from an abusive husband, Kole. He’s some bigwig on their world, so he had charges laid against her, yeah? Trying to get his kid back, like, so he can raise another little monster.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” he said, reading through the data she’d found. “It’s possible these reports of domestic abuse are unrelated to the crimes the woman is accused of.”
Neela snorted. “Yeah, and it’s possible I share your bed only for the warmth. That’s not the most likely reason, though, is it?”
He grunted, acknowledging the point. “Still, the father has as much right to see his son as the mother does. If she feels it’s too dangerous, there are legal routes she can take to get full custody.”
“Come on, man, you’re not that dumb. Even if he didn’t have pull in the government, like, the courts aren’t built for domestic issues. She would have had to go through years of hearings before she even got an answer. All while the father is doing everything he possibly can to keep her son away from her.”
Kole shrugged. Sorting out the mess that was the Hegemony legal system wasn’t his job. He found those who broke the laws and delivered them to face the consequences. It was a job he was good at, a job he made decent credits doing, and a job he’d never thought twice about.
Until he took on a partner. Neela had a fresh naiveté that made her look at the galaxy with hope, coupled with a desire to make things better. It was hard for him to just ignore everything outside of his little bubble when she pushed him to be better. To do what was right.
“What would you prefer we do?” he asked, giving in to her pleading gaze.
Neela flashed a wide smile, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek. “We should help her, yeah? Especially the little. He deserves better.”
Which was easier said than done. It had taken only a couple of hours to find the woman and her child on the lightly populated colony world. The system was so recently inhabited that it hadn’t even earned a name yet. The people still lived in the modular shelters that had been carried by the colony ship that was now sitting in the middle of the ramshackle town, where it was being used as governmental offices and lab space as pieces were slowly removed to construct more permanent structures.
Kole wasn’t sure what had made the woman choose this place to run to, but the people there had no ties to her that he could find. None of them even raised a hand to help her when the bounty hunters showed up and asked if anyone had seen her or the boy.
The child was the first to be found, playing in a dirty street with a couple of other children around his age. The boy watched them walk toward him for no more than a second before he bolted for an open door. Neela put a hand on Kole’s arm, and he remained in the street as she entered the shelter alone.
He didn’t know what was said in there, but when Neela emerged fifteen minutes later she gave him a joyful smile and told him to wait and then bring the woman and child to Rim Jumper. She ran ahead to prepare the second cabin so they could be comfortable. A cabin that had been hers for most of a year but was seldom used these days.
When the woman finally emerged from the shelter carrying a stained and frayed bag that seemed to hold very few possessions, she eyed him uncomfortably. Kole knew he presented a gruff exterior, the kind that made many people uneasy around him, if not outright frightened. It was something he’d carefully crafted through the years to help with his job.
“My ship is this way,” he said, raising a hand to point toward the patch of bare dirt outside the settlement. In lieu of an official spaceport, he’d been told to land anywhere flat enough to be suitable. This settlement was years away from becoming part of the trade routes that would bring regular traffic of freighters and trade ships larger than an oversized shuttle.
The little boy had hugged his mother’s leg for the entire walk through the settlement. When he did look up at Kole, his eyes quickly darted away again. For the first time, he wondered what the kid had gone through as he grew up. Had the father restricted his abuse to just the mother, or had it fallen on the child, as well? Those thoughts made him frown and clench his fists, which did nothing to assuage the trepidation of the mother and son.
Now, standing with the woman in the cargo bay of the ship, he tried out a smile. Her flinch told him he hadn’t gotten it exactly right. “You understand we still have to take you back to Roberts IV?”
She nodded, her hands twisting nervously as she took a deep breath. “Your partner said we have to go back and face the courts, but that you would help me protect my son.”
“We’ll do everything possible,” Kole said, trying not to lock himself into impossible promises. If the father were as politically connected as he seemed to be, their options would be limited.
He escorted her through the cargo bay, noticing her frightened glance at the detention room he’d built in a corner of it after buying the ship so many years ago. Hundreds of p
They paused outside the galley. The woman flashed her first genuine smile as she looked in to see her boy giggling with Neela as they nibbled on chocolate bars. Kole didn’t know which of them was having the most fun. It was a surprise to see how much his partner enjoyed being with the child, and he realized he’d never wondered if she might want children of her own someday. He only knew she’d had an older brother she hadn’t heard from since her father died and her mother disappeared, and that she had shared space with other children in a makeshift home after she became an orphan on Hebat Prime.
He showed the woman into the second cabin. Neela had cleared the few clothes that had still been in drawers, and she’d even changed the sheets on the narrow bunk. “It’s not opulent by any stretch, but you should be comfortable here until we get to Roberts IV.”
“It’s perfect,” the woman said wistfully, running a hand over the sheets on the bunk. He wondered what the shelter she’d been living in for the last couple of weeks had looked like.
“Galley is down the corridor, as you know, and the entertainment room is just opposite that. You’re free to use both of them, but I have to ask that you don’t go into the cockpit. It’s probably a good idea not to let the boy into the cargo bay on his own, too. There’s a lot of, uh, dangerous stuff in there.” Like his weapons lockers and the gear he used to break into any restricted areas while chasing bounties.
He left her to have some time alone and headed into the cockpit to get settled into the comfortable chair in the center of the room. A half circle of displays lit up in front of him, but he looked at the large viewscreen above them that was showing the settlement outside the ship. The collection of temporary shelters was coated in dust from several years of use, close to reaching the end of their expected life. This colony world was off to a slow start, though, and it could be another decade before they had the prosperity to begin building any permanent residential structures.
Kole shoved thoughts of the colony’s needs out of his mind, turning his attention to the ship he called home. Rim Jumper had once been a simple cargo vessel, but when he saw the battered old hulk in a ship auction, he’d recognized the hidden potential. A previous owner must have been a smuggler, because the frame of the ship had been strengthened beyond the norm. There were also loads of convenient little hiding places scattered around the ship, which he used in the rare cases that a planetary security force decided to perform an inspection. Not all of the gear he used in his job was strictly legal, even out in the Rim worlds where the laws were looser.
A holographic face shimmered into existence to the right of the viewscreen. It was a generic female face designed to please the greatest number of customers, sporting green and pink dreadlocks thanks to some inspired programing from Neela soon after she came on board. “Captain Anwynn, I see you have retrieved the targets you were seeking.”
“Yeah, ShANN, we got both of them. Check with the local controller and get departure clearance.”
The hologram was the AI he’d purchased to perform some basic functions for the many years during which he’d run the ship on his own. ShANN, or Shipboard Automated Neural Network, had been his only friend through many journeys across the Rim.
“Clearance is granted,” she told him seconds later in her flat, emotionless voice. Personality enhancement was an upgrade package he hadn’t been willing to spend the credits on.
“Excellent,” he said, pressing buttons to fire up the engines. There was a brief whine as they came online, along with a faint shudder in the deck plates. He keyed in the departure vectors, finding the best route to get away from the planet’s gravity well.
Neela walked into the small room, with the small boy held in her arms. “Hey, Kole, I told Mason he could watch as we leave the planet.”
He frowned at the encroachment on what he considered his personal space, but he didn’t say anything. It was almost impossible for him to deny Neela when she wanted something. The beaming smile on the kid’s face was almost worth the irritation of having strangers in his cockpit, too. He turned to the doorway and saw the mother standing just outside in the corridor. She was watching her son, an expression of hope on her face as Neela carried him closer to the viewscreen.
Kole cleared his throat, then jerked his head when the woman looked over. She gave him a grateful look as she hurried into the cramped room to take her son into her arms. Neela left them, moving to stand behind the pilot’s chair. She leaned over, her lips brushing his cheek. “You’re the best, man,” she whispered through a smile.
He grunted but kept his focus on the displays as he fed power into the ventral thrusters. A cloud of dust appeared on the viewscreen as Rim Jumper began to rise from the ground. The boy let out an awed sound as the settlement grew smaller and then disappeared from view. The bright blue sky on the screen became black, filled with tiny pinpoint stars. Even out on the edges of the Rim, there were enough stars in the sky to invoke a feeling of smallness when one thought of all the suns and planets they represented.
The woman pointed to one of the stars, talking softly to the boy. Kole knew that was their destination, so she must have been telling him it was their home. Hopefully, it would be a better home for them once they returned to Roberts IV.
As soon as they were outside the planet’s gravity well, he brought up the faster-than-light system. With a press of a button, the FTL drive kicked in and the stars became streaks of light. They would cross three lights years in just a couple of hours before dropping out long enough for the reactor to recharge and initiate the next jump. It would take a little more than a day to reach their destination.
Kole was back in the pilot’s chair before Rim Jumper dropped out of the last FTL jump. He compared the sensor data received just before initiating that last hop with what was in the database for the system. Everything matched up, giving him confidence that his set course wouldn’t take them too close to the orbit of an uninhabited planet or moon.
He pressed a button, and ShANN announced through the ship wide comms that arrival was imminent. It was a strange thing to hear, since he never used the warning system when it was just himself and Neela. She had already developed an innate sense of when they were near the end of a jump.
Light steps came from the corridor, feet moving quickly. An instant later, the little boy ran into the cockpit. He bumped against the edge of the console, then butted his head against Kole’s leg before he looked up with a wide smile. The time spent onboard had allowed the kid to open up and lose his shyness around the bounty hunters.
Neela appeared in the doorway, a mischievous grin on her face. “Hey, munchkin.” She walked over to grab Mason, lifting him to sit on her hip as she leaned against Kole’s shoulder. “Want to see some planets?”
The boy yelled happily, raising his fists as he squirmed in her arms. Kole fought back a smile as he watched the countdown expire. In the blink of an eye, the streaks of light resolved into individual stars again. The brown mass of a dead planet passed to the left of the viewscreen, with the green and blue marble that was Roberts IV straight ahead.
Kole nudged the ship to starboard to correct for a bit of drift. As the viewscreen shifted, a large object started to come into view. He looked at it in surprise, a moment before alarms began to blare through the comm system.
“What is that?” Neela asked, her voice filled with awe. The boy in her arms had his hands over his ears, his face screwed up in a way that said he was about to let out a wailing cry.
“Hegemony cruiser,” Kole said. It had been almost two years since he last saw one of the ships. They were a rare sight beyond the Core-ward fringes of the Rim, and he would never have expected to find one around an insignificant Outer Rim world like this.
As they watched the behemoth on the screen, it began to turn in their direction. Kole saw blue lights at the rear of the ship as the thrusters were opened up and the ship moved toward them.
ShANN’s holographic face appeared. “Captain Anwynn, I am receiving a command to heave to and prepare for boarding.”
